Maestro Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 Latest romours have it that Google will officially introduce their own branded phone Nexus One tomorrow, Tuesday, December 5, 2010: http://www.crn.com/mobile/222200066;jsessi...HOSKH4ATMY32JVN http://www.pcworld.com/article/185615/goog...ale_leaked.html -- Maestro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onnut Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 I doubt very much that it will be an iPhone killer! It will be interesting to see it and see what it can do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maestro Posted January 4, 2010 Author Share Posted January 4, 2010 It will be extremely difficult for anything ever to be an iPhone killer. The iPhone started out as the iPod and got the phone functions added. All other phones started out as phones and got some multimedia functions added. The Nexus does not have the multi-touch function, also called touch&squeeze. Its photo flash is weak. I won’t be among the first to get the Nexus so I won’t be able to give a first-hand account of what else it may lack that the iPhone has or what it may have that the iPhone doesn’t have, if such a thing is even possible. -- Maestro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maestro Posted January 5, 2010 Author Share Posted January 5, 2010 From an article published on engadget.com on January 2 about the Nexus One: The phone... includes the standard modern additions of a light sensor, proximity sensor, and accelerometer. What practical use does a proximity sensor have? -- Maestro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abrak Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 (edited) What practical use does a proximity sensor have?-- Maestro A fair guess would be that when you put it to your ear it turns off the touch screen. If you consider an iphone for example, if you placed it up to your ear without a proximity sensor, it would likely launch an App or phone somebody. Edited January 5, 2010 by Abrak Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tominbkk Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 It's intriguing, but I will wait for a year or so, when I consider replacing my current iPhone (though really i see no need to even then if it is still in working order - I love it!). Maybe in a year they will have more features, and something that will actually be ready to compete with Apple. If not, then it will be the iPhone 5G (or whatever it will be). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maestro Posted January 5, 2010 Author Share Posted January 5, 2010 So now it is official: www.google.com/phone/?locale=en_US&s7e= Not available in my country. If and when it gets to Switzerland it will need to have voice dialling before I even look at it. Will it ever make it to Thailand, with Thai and Chinese language support? -- Maestro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaoPo Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 Google unveils Nexus One "superphone" By Alexei Oreskovic MOUNTAIN VIEW, California (Reuters) - Google Inc took the wraps off the first of its smartphones on Tuesday, a device with speech recognition that it hopes can take on Apple's iPhone over time and help shore up the company's dominance in Internet advertising. Analysts say the phone -- to be sold directly to consumers -- is not expected to dramatically alter the carrier-hardware vendor relationship the industry relies on, nor is it likely to yield a revenue windfall in the short term, though executives said it could be profitable. Google plans to use what it calls a "superphone" -- the first of many types of smartphones that it will make -- to expand its reach from the PC to the mobile world and ensure its online products and ads get prominent placement on a new breed of wireless Internet devices. The highly anticipated Nexus One, which marks the first time the 11-year-old Internet search titan has designed and sold its own consumer hardware device, could provide Google with a viable challenge to the iPhone and Research in Motion's BlackBerry. It "wasn't the game-changer people thought it could be," Canaccord Adams analyst Jeff Rath said. Google could have shaken up the industry by offering the device for free, but instead chose more traditional pricing, he said. Rath added that though his early impression was that the Nexus One was a good phone, it was unclear how much better it was than Motorola's Droid, released last year and that also runs on Google's Android operating system platform. "It's very close to the Droid, some people will debate whether it's better. But it looks like an incremental improvement rather than a blow-the-doors-off improvement," Rath said. The Nexus One, which was garnering favorable first reviews on tech Websites and forums on Tuesday, ships immediately from Google's online store for $179 with a two-year contract from Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA, or $529 without a service plan. Executives said the phone will be carried on Verizon Wireless's network in the United States, and eventually on Vodafone's in Europe. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Vodafone and Verizon Communications. WAIT AND SEE Investors are taking a wait-and-see view on Google's first effort to sell a hardware product directly to consumers. Google's stock has risen about 7 percent since the start of December, setting a 52-week high of $629.51 on Monday. But analysts say that was driven by improvements in its core business of Internet search advertising, rather than the prospect of tapping a new pool of revenue selling smartphones. Its shares closed 0.44 percent down at $623.99. The Nexus One phone comes a little more than two years after Google jumped into the mobile market with the announcement it was developing a free smartphone operating system. Google's Android software is currently available on more than 20 phones from vendors including Motorola and Samsung Electronics. It pits Google -- the world's No. 1 Internet search engine, with annual revenue of about $22 billion in 2008 -- against a variety of more experienced players in the increasingly crowded smartphone market, including Palm Inc and Nokia. Some analysts were positive on Google's effort to continue to establish the Android as a popular operating system for smartphones and wireless devices. "It will help them keep consistency for Android platform," said Jim McGregor, Chief Technology Strategist for In-Stat. The new phone helps Google "get their partners all on developing a single platform that applications can be developed on." Motorola, which is banking on the Android system to power a new generation of smartphones to revitalize a flagging business, said on Tuesday it welcomed the competition. Co-Chief Executive Sanjay Jha told Google's audience he did not see the Nexus One as a threat, but as an expansion of the market. Google worked closely with HTC to develop its phone, which uses a 1 gigahertz Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm Inc. The Nexus One is 11.5 millimeters thick and weighs 130 grams -- which executives said was lighter than a Swiss Army knife and no thicker than a No. 2 pencil. The phone will feature a 3.7-inch (9.4 centimeter) touchscreen display. It will run the 2.1 version of the Android operating system and feature OLED display technology, a trackball for user interface control, an accelerometer chip, and a 5 megapixel camera. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6044...me=ustechnology LaoPo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaoPo Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 So now it is official:www.google.com/phone/?locale=en_US&s7e= Not available in my country. If and when it gets to Switzerland it will need to have voice dialling before I even look at it. Will it ever make it to Thailand, with Thai and Chinese language support? -- Maestro Language support Display English (U.S), French (France), German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Korean, Japanese, Russian, Keyboard English (U.S), French (France), German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), From your link, above. LaoPo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
friendlyguy01 Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 It won't be an iPhone killer but it will come close. It's technically not a Google phone. It's a HTC phone. Google really didn't have a say in it. It was designed by the CEO of HTC out of Asia. The only difference the phone will have is that you will be able to launch multiple apps with it. Unlike the iPhone where only one app can be open at a time... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikster Posted January 6, 2010 Share Posted January 6, 2010 (edited) It won't be an iPhone killer but it will come close. It's technically not a Google phone. It's a HTC phone. Google really didn't have a say in it. It was designed by the CEO of HTC out of Asia. The only difference the phone will have is that you will be able to launch multiple apps with it. Unlike the iPhone where only one app can be open at a time... We'll see how great of a feature that will be. Mind you, the iPhone has background apps, only they are tightly controlled and not available to 3rd party developers except via notifications. The iPod on the iPhone works no matter what, keeps playing music no matter what else you do. You can stay on the phone and launch apps (home button during a call)... and Mail checks email every X minutes (or via Push). These are all background apps. The iPod controls even pop up when the screen is locked, which is a fantastic feature. With the number of apps I have I am quite happy to know that none of them can run in the background. Even though now, actually, they can, via notifications. I like to be able to turn that off with a central preference. The problem is battery life. We'll see how the Nexus manages this - maybe it's more efficient, or maybe it has a larger battery. As an app developer, it would be awesome to be able to run in the background. So many possibilities. But as an end user, I am not so sure I'd want apps running wild. There's also not much advantage over the current system. All apps store their state when shut down, and come back up instantly. So why would I want to keep them running? Do I want to run scientific calculations in the background? Probably not... Engadget has reviewed the Nexus One - their verdict is that Android is still "getting there". It's a good phone, but no iPhone killer... the hardware specs are pretty impressive though, thinner than the iPhone with a larger screen, same weight. Full review here: http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/04/nexus-one-review/ Edited January 6, 2010 by nikster Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bendejo Posted January 6, 2010 Share Posted January 6, 2010 The real news is the Android OS, which will at some point work on a variety of devices, and it's a good bet that someone will hack out a version for the iPhone. For an analogy, go back a few decades to Apple computers vs. the PC. Apple computers ran the Apple OS, whereas DOS (and later Windows, and later Linux) ran on computers made by a number of manufacturers. The real changeover will be noticeable when people have to replace their iPhone -- this is where pricing and the selling of cool comes into play. The Apple concept of brand loyalty bordering on religious fervor seems to be holding. I think that if anything is being threatened it's the pocket PC (PPC) running Windows Mobile (formerly called WinCE, and yes, it causes many a wince!), and good riddance! Ask anyone who syncs with Vista or Win7. I'm hoping that at some point Android will run on my PPC. The idea is to change the market such that all phones will be smartphones and what is currently considered a regular phone will be called a dumbphone. I wouldn't expect to see this happen too quickly here in the developing world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crushdepth Posted January 6, 2010 Share Posted January 6, 2010 (edited) Apparently there's an Android-based 'intelligent kitchen' on display at CES this year. Maybe we will finally see that Java-powered coffee maker of legend become a reality? Best review of the Nexus I've found is on Engadget. Frankly it sounds a little bit disappointing given the hype. But having looked at the demo on the Google site I think the phone has strengths in other areas that make it worthwhile. Major plus is the tight integration of Google maps. Having said all that, my partner has an iPhone I have toyed with extensively. It's a typical Apple device - a gorgeous user interface but the only thing that makes me want to own one is the GPS/Google maps application (the street level maps of Bangkok are spectacularly detailed), which is amazing. Other than that most smart phones provide similar core functionality - email, music, photos, blah blah, albeit on considerably uglier interfaces. I think Android is the way of the future - maybe not this phone but the second or third iteration will leave the iPhone dead in the water. Edit: PS - the trackball is exactly the kind of stupid idea I'd expect on a HP device. You'll never see it again I promise. Edited January 6, 2010 by Crushdepth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikster Posted January 6, 2010 Share Posted January 6, 2010 The real changeover will be noticeable when people have to replace their iPhone -- this is where pricing and the selling of cool comes into play. The Apple concept of brand loyalty bordering on religious fervor seems to be holding. Think so? When I need a new phone, you have to offer me something better than what I already have, and here the iPhone competition falls flat at the moment. I am not going to switch to something worse, or "almost" as good. Cool factor blahdiblah if anything an iPhone is uncool because everyone already has one. If I want to be exclusive I stay far away from it. Android needs to get better, a lot better. The iPhone is pretty stiff competition after all is said and done. As the Engadget review shows, it's both hardware and software that need to be pretty excellent to compete. I can't help but notice that WinMobile seems to get a perhaps short-lived second wind here in the developing world - it's prevalent on lots and lots of cheap chinese Nokia knock-offs. From what I have seen on these knock offs is that while the exterior design is either a straight copy or pretty crap, the functionality and features give Nokia and others a run for the money. Android wants to be in that space, I think once it is, it will gain unstoppable momentum. Android is what the chinese clone makers need (as it's still way better than WinMo) and Android needs them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexpalex Posted January 6, 2010 Share Posted January 6, 2010 So if one happens to bring an unlocked version from the states to Bangkok how usable is it here? Would it be compatible on True's network? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bkkmick Posted January 7, 2010 Share Posted January 7, 2010 Can't believe that they haven't included multi-touch pinch and zoom. One of the best smart phone features for browsing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
livinthailandos Posted January 7, 2010 Share Posted January 7, 2010 I think most of you are missing at least a point though, the potential for this phone could be more than the iphone ( really the iphone is more based on unix and the iphone while the best out there for now doesn't mean it will be the best forever. Apple while innovative is still behind in some ways that other phones features have long had. the nexus one based on andriod is a 1st release in time could get better wait and see but whats great about it is the potential. apple is to much a lock down vendor, they dislike cydia due to what cydia allows users to do, even though cydia really makes your phone more great. We all know more mobile phone companies will have apps thats for sure, but heres what i like to see in future phones. 1. Wireless N chipset 2. Better battery life 3. Minimum 5 mega pixel camera as standard 4. Multi Tasking 5. Automatic wifi scanner that shows SSID, Channel, Type of Security, Strength of Signal ( without having to download an app ) 6. USB 3.0 7. Removal Battery. I Say goodbye to windows mobile, from lots of reports basically microsoft mobile has become uninnovative, they really didn't do anything before, or while the iphone came about. but this is typical of microsoft. Every month has shown a market share decrease of windows mobile, I believe a blackberry is much better as customer / business user than a windows mobile phone. I have had experience using the windows mobile and the software reminds of vista in a way, it hangs, it freezes at times. Future marketshares will be more or less Apple Blackberry Andriod Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zolt Posted January 7, 2010 Share Posted January 7, 2010 Well my boss is already begging me to replace his Blackberry with the Nexus (mostly for the voice-to-text e-mails). Any idea on the availability in Thailand/Asia and the retail price? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
upinthesky Posted January 7, 2010 Share Posted January 7, 2010 The spec of Nexus is far superior to iphone. Let's see what apple is planning for the next 4g iphone. But I personally prefer nexus, not a fan of apple. I heard the google phone is release in 2 of the countries in asia (Singapore and Hong Kong). I am going to get one once it arrives in Thailand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikster Posted January 8, 2010 Share Posted January 8, 2010 I think most of you are missing at least a point though, the potential for this phone could be more than the iphone ( really the iphone is more based on unix and the iphone while the best out there for now doesn't mean it will be the best forever. Apple while innovative is still behind in some ways that other phones features have long had. the nexus one based on andriod is a 1st release in time could get better wait and see but whats great about it is the potential. apple is to much a lock down vendor, they dislike cydia due to what cydia allows users to do, even though cydia really makes your phone more great. While I disagree that it's the potential that counts, I do agree on one thing: What can and probably will stop Apple's momentum is the lockdown mentality. Locked into "exclusive" vendors, locked into "approved" apps, locked into SIM and activation. Apple's control freakery is the only thing that prevents it from becoming the biggest company on the planet. The iPhone is years ahead of the competition - it looks like a piece of future technology from 5 years from now. But it's hampered by Apple's insistence on control. Cydia is a good example - how does it hurt Apple? It doesn't. Yet Apple is on a mission to squash it. Had Apple been open, and the iPhone been open to all comers, and offered like any other phone with and without contract and through all willing to sell, in all countries - they'd have easily sold 80M iPhones by now, instead of 40M. On the other hand, the companys success is due to its willingness to do things differently, and to not care one yota about what others are doing. So this is both a strength and a weakness. A company that would have done some market research on how to sell a phone would probably never have done a touchscreen device in the first place. The common knowledge before the iPhone was that touchscreen simply doesn't work. Google's biggest problem is its own success in the advertising space. The advertising revenue interests will at some point compromise the Android OS. I find it pretty silly that the Google search prompt is on the home screen. Search is important, but not important enough to be on the home screen. Microsoft... a stumbling giant addicted to free money it gets from Windows/Office licenses. All its other endeavors lose money. Blackberry I don't think has the software development power to compete in the long run. But who knows - maybe they hire some genius OS designers and get their old code on a new OS platform. Still have potential, at least they understand usability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikster Posted January 8, 2010 Share Posted January 8, 2010 Can't believe that they haven't included multi-touch pinch and zoom. One of the best smart phone features for browsing. This alone guarantees that web browsing will be an order of magnitude worse than on the iPhone. It's baffling indeed. Pinch and zoom on photos is a fun gimmick but not something you really do all the time. But when surfing the web, it's basically the one and only reason the iPhone's web browser is more usable than I would have thought possible on a small screen like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zolt Posted January 8, 2010 Share Posted January 8, 2010 While I disagree that it's the potential that counts, I do agree on one thing: What can and probably will stop Apple's momentum is the lockdown mentality. Locked into "exclusive" vendors, locked into "approved" apps, locked into SIM and activation. Apple's control freakery is the only thing that prevents it from becoming the biggest company on the planet. The iPhone is years ahead of the competition - it looks like a piece of future technology from 5 years from now. But it's hampered by Apple's insistence on control. ..... Blackberry I don't think has the software development power to compete in the long run. But who knows - maybe they hire some genius OS designers and get their old code on a new OS platform. Still have potential, at least they understand usability. Well, "approved" apps or not, the iphone still has the largest and best app store out there - for the time being. There's every reason for Android to pick up, as it's a more open platform supported by many phones, but so far it isn't happening. Maybe the Nexus will change that. Honestly in that regard, I don't think either of these can compare with the quality and diversity of Windows Mobile apps - but sadly that's the only thing Windows mobile had going for it. I'm not to afraid for RIM: Blackberry is pretty much the gold standard for businesses, and well on it's way to becoming a household name for private users too. It's not like the PC market where it takes a giant like Microsoft to maintain an OS: the development horsepower necessary on mobile platforms is an order of magnitude less, and RIM has always been doing rather well in that area. As for the multitouch ping & zoom, it's not that surprising: Apple put every patent they could on the thing. Probably Google decided they had enough lawsuits going at the moment and they'd better play it safe. Anyone know how widely the Nexus is available in Hong Kong? I'm flying through there next week and if possible I'll pick up one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzdocxx Posted January 8, 2010 Share Posted January 8, 2010 Nice thread, thanks everyone! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bendejo Posted January 8, 2010 Share Posted January 8, 2010 the only thing that makes me want to own one is the GPS/Google maps application (the street level maps of Bangkok are spectacularly detailed), which is amazing. This can be had on the PPC as well, dunno about 'berries Yeah, this is a new product frontier: the phone evolving into a networked PDA, and now that decent phones can be had for less than $100 they have some selling to do to make people feel they need all this new functionality and cough up a few hundred $$$. I appreciate the comment about that company's "control freak" mentality. It goes back to the boss. In the 1970s, when you bought a computer you entered into a bound relationship with the company that made it: if you needed anything to do with the computer, there was only one place to get it, and it wasn't cheap. Whatisname winces at the very thought of open systems. He once said "there is no reason an Apple computer should be connected to any other kind of computer." Funny watching the news these days: first you hear stories of a tenuous world economy, and the rest is about all the crap companies are competing with each other to sell us, like 'tablets,' 3-D TV, handhelds, etc. But maybe security procedures like THIS will boost gadget sales. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexth Posted January 9, 2010 Share Posted January 9, 2010 Before anything I am really curious about the date of availability in Thailand. Will probably take an year or so... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mezzoninny Posted January 10, 2010 Share Posted January 10, 2010 (edited) I think any claim that Apple/iphone is a hegemony and Android is the david against the Goliath, is an overt drama queen-style exaggeration. As corny as this might sound, it's just not possible to express "good taste" verbally sometimes, it's not built upon objective conditions, there's a very strong subjective element to it. I could not teach you, another human being, what good taste and good sense is. Out of all phone manufacturers, I think Apple still makes the most sensible and elegant product decisions. I don't need the manufacturer's name shouting back at me every time I use the phone (I've taken a marker to the logo on my phone.) I don't need multitasking when the phone very clearly can't handle it. I don't want Opera Mobile that crashed because it couldn't handle 5-layer nested quotes on this very forum (i even turned off image display!). I don't want hardware keyboard that's actually a lot harder to type on than a virtual keyboard. The list goes on. And also, the iphone's camera might only be 3MP, but it's been very well tuned, and it kicks my WinMo phone's miserable 3MP ass. These are obviously things I lack on my phone right now, and that's the voice of me groaning under the weight of my particular WinMo phone, so you probably wouldn't understand why I say these things. Or you might have, but you don't think it's a big deal - but it is. So in spite of a very strong distaste for Apple's computers, I have found Apple's app store practices, as well as their overall handset philosophy, extremely palatable and welcome. Reject for no reason? Perhaps it's not in good taste But there's at least one thing going for the nexus one that I'm surprised pretty much nobody's talked about: the price. If you put windows mobile on similar hardware, those phones unlocked tends to cost several hundreds over the $530 google is charging right now. If it's available to me at that price, I might give it a try instead of waiting on the next iphone. Edited January 10, 2010 by mezzoninny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zolt Posted January 22, 2010 Share Posted January 22, 2010 Still no news on availability in Thailand. So far: US, UK , HK, Singapore but all through on-line ordering only. I'll hit Panthip this weekend see if the grey market shops have it, but even if they do it will probably be at a considerable premium. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zolt Posted January 25, 2010 Share Posted January 25, 2010 Was at Panthip yesterday, no Nexus One anywhere. The guy said it might be available around mid-february, but I'm not sure if he actually had any clue. For that matter I couldn't find any other android phone - I wanted to have a look at the Motorola Droid, any idea where I can find one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crushdepth Posted January 25, 2010 Share Posted January 25, 2010 No droids here either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zolt Posted January 25, 2010 Share Posted January 25, 2010 Apparently someone bought one at MBK. Will investigate this afternoon. By the way, for those whining about the lack of multitouch, a hack is available here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=621441 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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